This is part two of my four-part article about the HHCC conference in Dallas. This is a link-heavy article.
Lunchtime! After the Breakthrough with Promotions session, it was time for lunch. Food first: chef salad, dinner rolls, and strawberry cheesecake (yum!). Then guest speaker:
Jerrilyn Farmer, author of the award-winning Madeline Bean novels. She spoke about the persistence, luck, and dedication necessary to become a writer. She was an entertaining speaker, very down to earth and amusing.
The first afternoon session was Finding Fans and Keeping Them with Carol Fitzgerald. She runs a review site called
BookReporter.com. This session concentrated mostly on the importance of writers creating clean, informative websites and how to contact reviewers to request reviews of your books (hint: be nice; don't annoy them; and be grateful even if the review was negative). Representatives from another review site,
Fresh Fiction, were also there.
Ms. Fitzgerald also discussed having a press biography, something clean and straightforward in addition to the cute or amusing bio you might have on your site. It should be something that could read aloud at a speaking engagement or used in a column.
Jordan Dane brought up a little information on using MySpace as a marketing tool.
Barry Eisler wrote an
article on Buzz, Balls & Hype recently discussing this very concept.
Ms. Fitzgerald also mentioned the
Shelf Awareness newsletter, a free email newsletter "dedicated to helping the people in stores, in libraries and on the Web buy, sell and lend books most wisely." Subscribing will help you stay informed on what's going on from the booksellers' points of view.
The final session of the day was Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Agents and Editors - But No One Would Tell You. The guest speakers were Jane Dystel of
Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, and
Denise Dietz, a writer and freelance editor for
Five Star Publishing. While this was a good session, I'm afraid I didn't get much out of it. Just hanging around the Absolute Write boards has pretty much given me a good knowledge of agents and editors, and I already have an agent.
It had good information for newer writers, like making sure your manuscript is cleanly formatted (double-spaced, one-inch margins, print on one side of the paper, etc.) Don't include your acknowledgements and dedication pages. Don't tell the editor how the book should be formatted (Ms. Dietz related a story of a writer who not only included an acknowledgements page, but indicated how it should be laid out in the book.)
Book signings were held after the session, but I left.
In part 3:
The Saturday morning session Making A Splash, Constructive Criticism, and Top Shelf (with booksellers from two popular independent book stores.)